Ellen tried to take the initiative. ‘You’ve been identified from a photograph array as being one of the men involved in the sexual abuse of underage boys, Pete.’
According to Kees van Alphen, thought Scobie in disgust. Van Alphen had been evasive lately, supplying partial answers or none at all, and he was never in his office. Running his own investigation, as Ellen had said in frustration last night.
Then, out of nowhere, an appalling thought came to Scobie: van Alphen was running interference for this gang of paedophiles. Van Alphen had assured Ellen that his informant, some kid named Billy DaCosta, had identified Duyker and Clode from a photo array, but maybe that was a delaying tactic, or an outright lie. And where were van Alphen and his mystery informant?
Duyker was yawning. ‘Are we done? Can I go?’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Ellen said. ‘We intend to make the fraud charges stick.’
‘So, make them stick.’
‘We will’
‘My lawyer will have me back on the street so fast your heads will spin,’ said Duyker, showing heat for the first time.
Scobie suspected it was true. A search of the man’s house had found nothing. His van was clean, apparently washed, waxed and vacuumed until it was like new. But Scobie and Ellen knew what Duyker didn’t know: there was a paint smear in the rear compartment. Purple enamel, the same colour as Katie Blasko’s bike, a smear so tiny that it was no wonder Duyker had missed it, amongst all of those other scuffs and scratches, obtained from years of loading and unloading. They were waiting for a paint analysis. They’d already approached the manufacturer of the bike for the composition of the paint that had been used on bikes like Katie Blasko’s.
They didn’t have the bike, though. ‘It will be at the bottom of the bay,’ Ellen had said last night. ‘We might prove he had a bike on board, but not that he had Katie Blasko’s bike.’
Now Scobie heard her ask Duyker to account for his movements on the afternoon Katie Blasko was abducted.
Duyker shrugged. ‘Out and about, probably.’ He shifted in his seat, fishing for his wallet. It was a fat wallet, the leather worn, the cotton stitches unravelling. And full of business cards, receipts and paper scraps. Scobie and Ellen watched as he leafed through it all, wetting his index finger laboriously, loving every minute of it. ‘Here we are,’ he said eventually.
He slid a cash register receipt across the table. Ellen poked it into position with her fingernail. Scobie peered at it with her. At 4 pm on the day Katie Blasko was abducted, Peter Duyker had been buying a photography magazine in a city newsagency, one-and-a-half hours away by car or van. ‘My filing system,’ he said apologetically, ‘leaves a lot to be desired.’
45
Then Duyker’s lawyer arrived and advised Duyker to say nothing more. ‘Nothing more?’ echoed Duyker. ‘I haven’t said anything to begin with.’
‘How long will you be holding my client, Sergeant Destry, assuming you don’t charge and remand him?’
‘The full twenty-four hours.’
‘Is that necessary?’
‘It’s necessary,’ said Ellen flatly.
The door closed on Duyker and the lawyer. In the corridor outside the interview room, Scobie began to apologise. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘No, you weren’t, were you? We still don’t know if the DNA found on Duyker’s skin mags-which might belong to someone else, incidentally-can be matched to the DNA found in De Soto Lane, or to the degraded DNA found on Serena Hanlon.’
‘I thought I’d throw a scare into him.’
‘Well you didn’t,’ Ellen said.
Perhaps she was being unfair. The truth was, she was finding it hard to get Hal Challis out of her head this morning. He’d phoned her with the news about his father, and she could still hear the desolation in his voice, the particular timbre of his grief and sadness. A hint of longing and loneliness, too? She thought so. She wanted to be with him, but could hardly do that, for he’d be too distracted, she didn’t know his family, and she had important investigations to run. And so he resided in her mind.
She made for her office. Maybe DNA evidence would help solve this case, but the lab was dragging its heels, and who knew what appalling errors of procedure it was making. She cast back in her mind, Duyker sitting comfortably across from her in the interview room. No bite marks on his fingers or forearms. Maybe Sasha had bitten him on the leg.
She was leafing desultorily through paperwork in her in-tray when the lab called. ‘That paint chip,’ one of the technicians-not Riggs- said.
‘Yes?’
‘We traced it to a line of children’s bicycles manufactured by Malvern Star between 2003 and 2005.’
‘Yes!’ said Ellen.
‘We aim to please.’
Ellen pressed the disconnect button of her desk phone and sat like that for a while. She should have made a more concerted effort, sooner, to find the bike. Everything that had happened, especially finding Katie alive, had blinded her to obvious matters. She released the button and called the media office, arranging for a wide circulation of descriptions and photographs of the bike. She was in a kind of trance now. She was stepping inside Duyker’s skin, not Duyker the paedophile-she ‘knew’ that side of him-but Duyker with an unwanted child’s bike on his hands.
This Duyker would have left the bike, helmet and schoolbag in his van after taking Katie Blasko to the empty house, but he wouldn’t have wanted to keep them for long. There were remote places he could dump everything, but what if he were seen by someone. Also, a newish bicycle found in the middle of nowhere is going to raise questions, especially if the police have been saying they’re looking for one just like it (here Ellen squirmed in her seat). Dumping the stuff at sea would require a boat. No, she could see Duyker leaving the bike in a public place, where children played-the sort of community where claiming an abandoned bike as your own was not a matter of dishonesty but of keeping your trap shut and thanking your lucky stars. The helmet and schoolbag he could have dumped anywhere.
Her only hope now was a firm ID from van Alphen’s street kid, Billy DaCosta. She went downstairs. Van Alphen was not in his office, or Kellock’s. According to the front desk, he hadn’t checked in yet. She made for the sergeants’ lounge. Kellock was there, flipping through a newspaper, turning the pages in typical style, as if to tear them out. He looked up at her with barely controlled patience. ‘Kel,’ she murmured, turning to go out.
‘Sergeant Destry,’ Kellock roared.
She turned back.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m looking for Van.’
‘Maybe I can help you.’
She tried not to show her frustration. ‘I need a statement from his witness. I need to take it myself, face to face. I can’t take Van’s word for it that this kid of his can identify Clode and Duyker.’
‘Kid?’
‘A street kid called Billy DaCosta. Van Alphen found him and was supposed to be bringing him in this morning.’
Kellock tossed the newspaper aside and lumbered across the room to her. He spoke, a gust of coffee breath: ‘Look, Van’s one of the good guys, but this shooting board investigation of the Jarrett shooting has got him worried. I’m worried. He could lose the plot, crack under the pressure. Go easy on him. Give him time.’
‘He’s running around finding witnesses and collecting evidence,’ said Ellen exasperatedly. ‘If it’s useful, great. But I can’t afford to waste time on red herrings, or fail to act because he cries wolf once too often.’
‘Leave it to me.’
‘He could run into some nasty people, doing what he’s doing.’
‘I know that.’
Ellen cocked her head. ‘Unless he’s protecting them.’